Fortress of Dragons

  That answer might easily lie in error on both sides: they went to confirm that hope at Althalen—for it was quite possible that Aeself’s men and Crissand had had a near pass, one with the other.

  But in case that was not the source of the arrows, and to be sure of the safety of Modeyneth and Anwyll’s camp, at the far end of the road, Tristen had requested a band of Ivanim light horse, armed and ready for encounter, to ride out ahead of him and assure themselves that things were well in that direction.

  He rode out himself, then, for he had the gift to know who was in the land, far better than any scout, and Cevulirn himself had volunteered to stand by Tassand and Lusin in administering things in Henas’ amef while he was gone…for Lusin and his company had become far too useful there, Crissand was still nursing his wound, and wished to go, but Emuin called it folly, and it afflicted him most when he sat a horse, so there he stayed in the town, assisting Cevulirn and overseeing Tassand’s oversight.

  So Tristen had no doubt at all in his riding out that he had left the town in good hands—no slight to Uwen, who had not had the authority Cevulirn had, when the Patriarch had deserted the town: not even Cevulirn could have prevented that disaster.

  Uwen was glad to be with him, all the same, and said so.

  “As I ain’t set to be any town mayor, nor ever will be, and gods save me, I didn’t know what I was to do when His Reverence up and went.”

  “No more than I could have done,” Tristen said, “except I used magic, and that wouldn’t have been wise, would it?”

  “Not if His Reverence knew ’t,” Uwen said, “but happens as most times folk don’t know, do they?”

  “I don’t,” Tristen said as they rode. “I don’t wish people to do things or not to do them. It doesn’t seem polite.”

  Uwen laughed. “No,” Uwen agreed. “It don’t, at that.”

  They were on the West Road, since other searchers had gone out to the north. It had seemed good to go by the back route toward Althalen, to be sure that no enemy had slipped in to establish a presence in the lesser-traveled west of Amefel. That brought them generally toward Lewenbrook, though they would not go that close to Marna Wood, and it brought them generally toward Emwy village.

  Near Emwy was the ruin of the westernmost bridge, the one that had let Aséyneddin across before Lewenbrook, and it had no garrison, only the observance of Pelumer’s rangers, who reported that the bridge stonework still stood, but that it had no decking.

  That was quick to mend if an enemy dared use it. With a road to guide them and a means by which stealthy small bands could come deep into Amefel, it seemed a weak point—not utterly so, for it was Auld Syes’ land, and under wards far stronger than any he had set at Modeyneth.

  But now it seemed worth the inquiry. They would ride out to the west and ride back again by the North Road, where the attack on Crissand had taken place. That way they covered both routes, and Cevulirn’s riders were further assurance, deeper into the north than they would go. They would set Modeyneth’s men to watching and scouring the hills, which shepherds could do far more efficiently than armed riders or anyone but the Lanfarnessemen.

  And well knowing that Pelumer’s rangers were abroad from here to Modeyneth and into the rough lands beyond, and that Aeself’s men maintained patrols, he rode plainly under the banners, the red of Amefel and the black of Althalen and Ynefel, and with all the equipage of war, besides that they wore the red bands of cloth that Pelumer had decreed to distinguish them from intruders.

  And if he needed any other distinction to mark his passage through his province, Owl joined him, soaring past now and again as if to be sure he was still where Owl thought—or perhaps to torment them all with his silent approaches, just near enough the horses to startle.

  Owl was not given to lengthy flights, and found perches, Tristen was sure, in one and another of the scattered trees…but Owl passed by them at times when there seemed to be no perch, when the hills were as bare as eggs and the land was flat under winter white, and his coming and going put the men on edge. No few of the Guelenmen blessed themselves when Owl would pass near, and one of his guards remarked that, “That bird’s often ahead o’ trouble.”

  That did not seem to be Owl’s purpose in joining them, however, not as he thought today. Owl might presage change, but he also presaged discovery.

  Change came of finding new things, however; and sometimes those things were not what one might wish. It was an all-day ride, in increasing cold, this ride they had undertaken, down a road he had ridden more than once in Cefwyn’s company, again with Ninévrisë, and last of all toward Lewenbrook and home again.

  That last journey had been very different…joyous for the victory, solemn for the loss of many, many lives. And that journey stayed most on his mind—the last time he had seen this land, at summer’s end, with leaves on the trees that now were bare and snow-coated.

  They counted on an overnight stay at Althalen, but in consideration of the difficulty of provisioning the residents there, they carried provisions for two days. It was slower going than usual for riders, on account of the snow impeding progress, and although they had started at first light, they began to ask themselves whether they might not need those supplies tonight, fearing they might not reach Althalen before the last glow of day left the sky.

  “There’s reputed to be haunts,” said Gweyl, of his night guard…not that Gweyl or any of his guard would flee if a whole host of Auld Syes’ company trooped across the road. The men who served him had all stood their ground under remarkable circumstances. But it was a worried look, all the same.

  “We’ll miss supper, at least,” Uwen said with a sigh, “damn this road and its holes. We can’t make speed wi’out ye break your neck, man, so we just keep goin’.”

  “They’ll provide for us,” Tristen said. “No need to make camp. We can go as long as there’s light and after.”

  “I don’t doubt they’ll be glad to see ye,” Uwen said, and added with a laugh: “If it was just us metal-coats, we’d have a cold ’un and a foul look from th’ landlord…but then, it ain’t, and the Elwynim ain’t goin’ to grudge you a late arrival.”

  Ahead of them the banners made their identity sure, and would do so as long as there was light to show the colors: so Tristen hoped, thinking of arrows and Crissand’s misfortune: foul looks from the landlords indeed.

  But a hill farther on, they came to a tree the snow did not disguise, a lone tree taller than the snow-covered rocks among which it grew, and there they crossed a frozen stream, a small sheet of ice.

  Owl, absent for the last hour, called from among the trees, and sat as a lump of feathers in the fading wintry light.

  “Damn that bird!” Uwen said, startled, and then: “Forgive me, but he don’t give warning.”

  “He doesn’t,” Tristen said. But it was as if the land had gone in disguise under the snow. Suddenly, from that old tree and the rocks he recalled, the land looked altogether familiar. He remembered being here with Petelly, before he had met Ninévrisë. He remembered the grass on the bank, how it had grown, and how Petelly had drunk from water now hard as glass.

  The sun was beginning to stain the leaden, sifting clouds, but he pointed to the way he remembered, and led them off the road and into the untracked white of the hills.

  Untracked, but as they rode Tristen recognized the path all along, an old road, a broad course through the rounded roughness of the sparsely wooded hills, paved, once. He felt the presence of old stones in his very sense of the land, and guided Dys around a buried wall where the road took a turn.

  “Wary o’ them stones,” Uwen cautioned the men. “There’s trenches an’ foundations to stumble into.”

  Indeed it seemed to Tristen as if buildings should stand to left and to right, and there, yes, a fountain had once stood, fed by that very spring. Now there was only snow, and a straggle of gorse.

  Old stones soon poked edges up atop the snow; and a wind rose, sporting around the horses, blowin
g up under their bellies and playing around their faces. Owl, tracking them since the stream, dodged and dived through the gusts.

  “Damn!” Uwen said in exasperation, for Owl made Cass shy violently under him, and arrows could scarcely do that.

  “Is there ghosts?” Gweyl asked.

  “I’m sure,” Tristen said, and yet had no alarm about reaching out into the land, listening for living souls…and they were there. He had a sense of presence, nothing threatening. He found nothing threatening in the sport the gusts made.

  But there, he felt something other than living souls, something which grew as the light faded and the wind rose.

  “Spooky place,” Uwen said. “Wind’s talking.”

  It did make a sound, a soft sighing across the snow.

  “It’s a welcome, no more.”

  The banners flew out, snapped and bucked, trying the strength of the men that held them steady. And now the wind acquired voices, a mournful sound.

  “Seen this,” Uwen said above the sound. “It’s the ol’ lady!”

  “Don’t fear her,” Tristen said. “But go quietly, all.”

  Uwen had seen Auld Syes more than once, and had seen the Shadows of Althalen. The Amefin guard was for the most part new to this, but they went doggedly ahead toward ruins where they would not willingly have ridden, glancing warily about them.

  And a turn or two on, they came on a place where something had made old streaks in the snow, and where strange shapes jutted, half-uncovered, from the depth of the drifts.

  They came closer, finding the glint of metal overlaid with ice, then the angle of an elbow, a knee, a shoulder, all frozen in the snow.

  “Gods bless,” the sergeant of the Amefins said. “It’s Elwynim.”

  It was no hapless band of Amefin that lay thus frozen by the winter, armed and armored. He rode by, giving the area a passing glance, and near a ruined wall they found another such clump of frozen remains, well armored, and that armor sheeted with ice. The faces, for a few showed, were openmouthed, as if they cried out against their deaths.

  Suddenly the wind sported with them, and skipped, and streaked the snow and tugged at the banners. Owl swooped near, broad, blunt wings atilt on a snow-laden gust.

  “Captain,” Gweyl said anxiously.

  “Stick close,” Uwen said, and half turned in his saddle to call out to the guardsmen. “Don’t fear the wind, lads! It’s on m’lord’s side an’ always has been.”

  The banners flew sideways in the gusts, and the blast of ice-edged cold rocked even Dys’ huge strength. Oaths escaped some lips: “Hush!” others said.

  “Auld Syes!” Tristen called out. “Do you hear? Soft! Speak softly to your folk!”

  The wind fell somewhat, and gusts skipped away over the nearest hill, streaking deep tracks in the snow. Snow still blew, and ran in small clouds off the tops of old walls, in the last sinking of the sun.

  But now they came to higher walls which partially sheltered them from the wind, and entered a maze of ruins, old stone walls long devoid of plaster, all dark gray against the snow, and liberally dusted with new fall from the roiled heavens.

  Then, past a narrow convergence of ruined walls, appeared walls built of wood, structures abutted up against the old stoneworks. They rode through a gap in old stones and smelled fires, and heard the high voices of children at play.

  They and the children caught sight of each other at the same moment, a few heavily bundled figures that stood stock-still and stared, then ran shrieking in among the wooden walls.

  That brought out the elders, into that strange still time between oncoming storm and evening, a dim, snow-veiled number of cloaked men with weapons, and a handful of women tightly bundled in shawls and cloaks, carrying spears.

  Owl flew across Tristen’s sight, and came back again, and presumptuously spread his great wings for a landing, with no perch, if Tristen had not put out his gloved hand.

  On that, Owl settled. The banners flew straight out in the gusting wind and Owl, feathers clamped tight and still ruffling, shifted his grip, rowing with his wings for balance.

  The guard had stopped still about him, and the leader of the folk came through the blowing snow to pay his respects, came earnestly, sweeping off the cowl to show his face.

  It was Aeself, bearded, bright-eyed, and cheerful at the sight of them.

  “M’lord,” Aeself said with a deep reverence, and turned and shouted out to the others. “This is the lord of Althalen and Ynefel! This is himself, the lord Tristen and his men, and our lord’s guard out of Amefel! Show him respect!”

  The heavily cloaked men and women knelt in the snow, and the elder children uncertainly did as their elders did, the youngest huddling shyly into parental arms. More came out of hiding among the buildings, until around about the area there might have been a hundred, two hundred souls, all kneeling, in a great half circle.

  Astonished at so many, Tristen stepped down from the saddle, and raised up Aeself, and another of his men, then a woman who chanced to be near, for this kneeling and reverence was not his, and nothing he sought. Aeself he embraced, and looked him in the eyes, where he saw the pride Aeself had in what he had made of Althalen. Encouraged, the people, too, rose to see, and Uwen and the guard silently dismounted, until they all stood facing one another, a gathering so silent for that moment of assessment that the gusting wind and the restless shifting and blowing of weary horses was the loudest sound in their camp.

  “Lord of Althalen,” Aeself said against that silence, “you’ve come to your capital.”

  “You’ve done very well,” Tristen said, for dull as he was to proprieties, he knew how much Aeself yearned to be in the right of matters. “You’ve made these people safe.”

  “My lord,” Aeself said, and hastily waved a hand at those standing near. “Bring our lord and his men meat and drink! See to their horses. Hurry there!”

  He had forbidden Aeself to hail him king, and Aeself had obeyed that wish, but he knew the thought in Aeself’s heart, and he saw it in these people, who welcomed him and his guard and opened up the wide, rough timber doors of their great hall to him.

  “Come in, come in,” Aeself urged him, and he did so, with Uwen beside him, and Gweyl and his guards, leaving Dys and Cass to the men, with all the horses.

  The place was half of that same rough timber and half stone from the ruins. He was anxious to have his men out of the cold, but this place was large enough to receive them, and Aeself left the wide doors open for all to come and go, despite the snow falling outside.

  Women, snow-sprinkled and bundled up in shawls and scarves, hurried to bring in trestles and benches, and men brought snowy planks, so that in a moment the barren place had tables. Women hurried back with baskets of hard bread, and men brought bowls, while the chill wind wafted the scent of food around the halfopen hall.

  “The horses,” was all Tristen needed to say to receive Aeself’s assurances there was provision for them and that the men had help settling them. In the meanwhile nothing would do but that they sit and accept mulled ale, while onlookers jammed the door, a living wall that cut off much of the wind and made the hall all but snug.

  “Are you well here?” Tristen asked, and had Aeself’s assurance that they were, and more than that, they thrived: Modeyneth helped them, and they had no sickness in the camp, no lack of warm blankets and dry boots.

  Other questions waited on their supper, which waited for the men to come in, and when they did, it was a good thick stew with their hard bread, rough fare which came wonderfully welcome after a long cold ride.

  With so many bodies already to block the drafts and a good fire in a chimneyed old hearth giving off a grateful warmth on the right side, still more of Aeself’s folk crowded in, a living blanket of well-wishes and earnestness.

  “I came to see how you fared,” Tristen said, broaching the business on which he came, “and to learn whether there might be Tasmôrden’s men across the river, and I found dead men outside your walls,
frozen in the snow.”

  Heads nodded solemnly. No one seemed surprised, but no few blessed themselves.

  “Two bands came at us here,” Aeself said, “and each time the wind came up, and the snow blew. We said to ourselves it was a ghost wind when first we heard it. And the next day we went out to find whether they’d been back, and there they lay, stiff and frozen, Tasmôrden’s men, and up to no good. So it happened the second time, two days after that.”

  Even among the Amefin men blessed themselves, and Uwen said, softly, “It were the old lady got ’em.”

  “Your enemies aren’t welcome at Althalen.”

  “Gods bless,” Gweyl said, and his men with him, while the Amefin echoed the same.

  Tristen said quietly, “The earl of Meiden said he fell in with armed men to the west and south, as he was riding from Modeyneth, and so we sent Ivanim by the north road and came by the west, to see if they had come toward you. We thought we should come see if you needed help. And clearly not.”

  “As you see…no, my lord. We have help.”

  “Do you need anything? Are you in want of anything?”

  “We want for nothing but the chance to serve,” Aeself said, “to post our own guards along the river, to defend you, my lord. We are your men to order. And if Tasmôrden’s men come into this land, we know them, and we know whom to trust.”

  “Do it,” Tristen said without a qualm, and to Uwen’s slight unease in the matter.

  “M’lord,” Uwen said softly, “the rangers is out, too, an’ there might be a misfortune.”

  Tristen shook his head. “They’ll wear the red badge.” He had looked Aeself in the eyes and knew this was a loyal man, and that Aeself of all men would countenance no spies.

  “Here are three hundred men,” Aeself said, “and eleven women who know the bow and who can stand and shoot, and the women can keep a tower, if we raise one, if we have your leave. We can take the field. We have men skilled in woodcraft and in stealth, and we can range up and down the river and be sure who comes and goes here.”